[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Bad timing by Katz on what he said, but there is truth in some of it. That should be settled quietly for the good of all concerned.

I had a “dog” in this game but the Nazis killed them all so I have to stand in for them. Yes, many Poles were anti-Semitic and killed Jews during WW2, or refused to help them.
My survivor friends have to me stories about this, and I just bought a book entitled “The Crime of Silence: Confronting the Massacre of Jews in Wartime Jedwabne”, 2004/2015 (English translation), by Anna Bikont.

A short synopsis review on the back cover of this book, written by author Jan. T. Gross, read as follows:

“What happens to a society that tries to bury an unconscionable crime”?
On July 10, 1941, residents of the Polish town of Jedwabne herded local Jews into a barn and set it on fire. Sixteen hundred men, women, and children perished in the blaze. But the massacre was kept secret, its destails obscured or vehemently denied. Despite warnings and threats from residents who insisted that she stay away, the acclaimed Polish journalist Anna Bikont began reporting on the town.

Part reportage, part memoir, “The Crime and the Silence is based on oral histories of survivors, witnesses, and PERPETRATORS alike. Bikont’s miss is nothing less than to identify the sources of hatred that ignited the flames”.

The Germans had invaded Poland and the Soviets were on their way but this massacre had nothing to do with WW2. It had to do with ancient hatreds, based on nothing real, and it cost the lives of thousands of people.

Poland has a lot to explain and repair from their recent past. Perhaps Katz was undiplomatic to say the least, but he spoke the truth.

PS: One of my friends for many years at a monthly scholars/soldiers/diplomats, etc luncheon was Stefan Korbonski,a key leader of the Free Polish Army who fought the Nazis and Communist invaders. He was given the highest award that Israel could give to a non-Jew, the Yad Vashem Award of “Righteous Gentile” for his help in getting arms and aid to the Jewish “Warsaw Ghetto” so that they could defend themselves against the Nazis. Other Polish leaders did nothing.

Stefan was a very honorable exception, and as we learn through continuing research, there were other Poles who risked their lives to save their Jewish friends, neighbors, and strangers (one of my friends and her family being amongst them - the posed as Catholics for years and were never betrayed, unlike Anne Frank and her family were in Holland).

Just thought you might like to know a little more about Katz’s feelings.

Epilogue: Among the 15-20,000+ Polish Army Reserve Officers massacred by the Soviets at Katyn Forest were anywhere’s from 5-7,000 or more Jewish officers. Those killed were the cream of the crop of Polish intellectuals and other leaders, of all faiths. The communists viewed them as great a threat to their invasion as they did the Polish Army.

I’ve read part of the U.S. Government’s reports on the Katyn Forest Massacre, a many volume study that is as good today as it was back in the 40s/50s.

[dfwgator]

There was no Polish government in place at that time.

There was no “Vichy Poland”. These were acts of individuals, the Polish government has no responsibility for what happened.

Now, if you want to talk about 1968, and the shameful expulsion of Jews from Poland by the Communists, that’s another story.

[dfwgator]

Meanwhile, there’s never any mention of the Ukrainians massacring ethnic Poles.

Whereas, many Ukrainians served as guards at the Death Camps, NOT ONE SINGLE POLE was a guard at any death camp.

[dfwgator]

Poland has a lot to explain and repair from their recent past. Perhaps Katz was undiplomatic to say the least, but he spoke the truth.

And what about Jews, like Chaim Rumkowski, and all of the Jewish KAPOs, who tortured their fellow Jews in the Ghettoes? Are they any less worthy of contempt as some of these Poles? It was war, in some it brings out the best, in others, the worst, that's Universal.

[Cronos]

#1. "anti-semitic" -- in words yes, but even the worst did not murder Jews

#2 "killed jews during ww2" - a few did, but - if a Pole killed a Jew or supported the Germans while doing so, they would be on the AK (underground army) list as collaborators

#3 "refused to help them" - if you were a Pole in Warsaw or anywhere, and you helped a Jew, you AND your family's lives were forfeit

Józef and Wiktoria Ulma

Józef and Wiktoria Ulma, a Polish husband and wife, living in Markowa near Rzeszów in south-eastern Poland during the Nazi German occupation in World War II, were the Righteous who attempted to rescue Polish Jewish families by hiding them in their own home during the Holocaust. They and their children were summarily executed on 24 March 1944 for doing so. The Ulmas had six children: Stanisława, age 8, Barbara, age 7, Władysław, age 6, Franciszek, age 4, Antoni, age 3 and Maria, age 2. Another child was due to be born just days after the family's summary execution on 24 March 1944

I would hesitate to help people if my family would be killed - but 7000 Poles did not.

In NO other German occupied land was this harsh punishment meted out.

[Cronos]

Jan Gross exaggerates. Jedwabne and Kielce were the two horrible pogroms - no excuses. But the number killed, nay murdered was 340 not 1600. To inflate numbers like that is lying.

Perhaps Katz was undiplomatic to say the least, but he spoke the truth. - He spoke the truth? You think it is the truth to say someone is genetically evil? So the disgusting, fictional Protocols are 'the truth; for you?

No, this was beyond undiplomatic - if Poles ARE so genetically evil, why did 7000 help Jews, even at the potential cost of their childrens' lives? Why did they give safe harbour to Jews for 400 years? No, that statement he made was as disgusting as anything made against Jews.

[ek_hornbeck]

You'd think from this recent obsession with Poland that Poles rather than Germans were primarily responsible for World War II for the mass murder of Jews and others.

Were there anti-Semitic Poles? Sure. Did some Polish individuals collaborate with the Nazis? Sure - as were/did some individuals from pretty much every country occupied by the Nazis.

That doesn't change the fact that the Polish government and military resisted the Nazi invasion and never became a collaborating vassal - consequently, the Germans murdered and enslaved millions of (non-Jewish) Polish civilians. And calling Nazi labor and death camps "Polish" simply because they were located in what had once been Poland during the German occupation is misleading at best and, more likely, an outright lie.

Most likely, all of these slanderous attacks against Poland are due to the fact that virtually alone among EU nations (apart from Hungary), Poles are resisting both social radicalism and mass Islamic immigration from Africa and the Middle East.